The rarely spinning turbines of the Strata Tower, south London

editor

6 years ago

Voted ‘Britain’s ugliest new building‘ by readers of Building Design magazine (and thus the holder of the 2010 Carbuncle Cup), the 43-storey Strata tower in south London presents a distinctive outline with its three turbines fitted to the roofline.

But do they ever move?

Designed by BFLS (formerly Hamiltons), the £113 million tower houses 408 apartments, of which just 98 are classified as “affordable housing.”

When the tower was proposed, the developers claimed that the three turbines would generate 8% of the tower’s electricity needs, but seeing as the things don’t appear to have moved for months, we suspect that figure is closer to 0% most days.

It seems that the posh folks living in the upper floor penthouses objected to the noise and vibration of the spinning blades, prompting project director Ian Bogle to suggest that they should be turned off between 11pm and 7am each night (Londonist, March 2010).

Since then, we’ve only ever seen the turbines moving a handful of times, although Ellis Woodman, the Daily Telegraph’s architecture critic, wasn’t impressed with the whole concept, even if the turbines did work:

A skyscraper is an energy-greedy building form, both in terms of construction, and the power needed to take people to their front doors in a lift. To top one off with some wind turbines is the worst sort of greenwashing.

But the turbines have barely moved, according to its new residents. They also claim the single boiler down the side of the building is overheating their flats.

Resident Nathan Wheelhouse said: “When I left my house the other morning it was 28C at 7.30am — it’s tropical in there. The cold and hot water pipes flow next to each other. I feel like I’m in an eco experiment that has gone wrong at the design stage. I only moved in two weeks ago and I am not enjoying it.”

A view of the Strata tower in December 2011. The turbines weren’t moving.